It wasn’t entirely clear what the end stage of the murder plan was. It sure didn’t look to me like the murders were done with concern for secrecy. I assume the idea was that the people who did the murders took the fall for them and their families received some enormous payout in exchange. It would have been insanely expensive I would think (especially with several guys on each murder) and almost impossible to maintain that sort of conspiracy against what would be an all out federal investigation, but I suppose the end is a-coming for Walt more quickly than any such investigation is likely to bear fruit.
But really, think about what the response would be. Has there ever been anything like ten simultaneous coordinated hits on potential witnesses in high-security lockup in real life? The amount of heat it would bring IRL would be on par with a terrorism attack. And Todd’s uncle would have to be bigger than Tony Soprano and John Gotti put together to accomplish it.
We can think of lots of reasons might Mike not have wanted to do business with that gang or felt they might not have been useful to their business, but I got the sense he didn’t think much of their capabilities. It sounds like they were quite capable given the motivation, although of course their scheme could fall apart.
And then, when the cops wise up to the families’ payout and start leaning on the fall guys to talk, Walt can arrange for them to all be suddenly simultaneously murdered, in an indication of his growing… wait…
There wasn’t any indication that they didn’t care if they were caught. Every murder was a hit and run and then walk away like nothing happened.
You’re right that it certainly stretches credibility, but it’s not impossible, which is all that matters on TV. As far as I can tell there’s never been anything like it, ever, but it does seem to utterly stun Hank and makes for big news, so it’s not like the show treated it as a trivial occurrence.
Did anyone else catch the odd dynamic between Walt and Lydia towards the end of their conversation? After stating her European proposal, Lydia said something to the effect of “We’re going to make a lot of money together” with a very firm, hand-on-top handshake, suddenly losing the quiver in her voice. Walt looked very taken aback… the Lot of Money recalls the same line said by Tuco early on. I get the sense that Walt suspected or figured that Lydia is the Queenpin and has been leading everything from a rear-guard position, letting who-cares-who duke it out with one another for the right to produce for her, and/or he’s going to have to take on all of Madrigal if he really wants to be on top. Added to the likelihood of a cancer relapse, he decided to get out. Czech please!
My prediction for the conclusion - Walt’s terminal cancer comes back and he offers Hank, or is enticed, to give up the entire operation, from top to bottom, in exchange for skedaddling with some money. Skyler, Marie and Flynn are killed in an attempted hit, so Walt does a Keyser Soze and wipes out everyone left, eventually sparing or even taking a bullet for Jesse. Despite having evidence against him, Hank lets Jesse run into anonymous obscurity with Holly.
Last scene is Jesse playing the baby. Buh, itch, Bitch.
Those were pretty bloody murders. In one case we saw a man beaten to death and flecks of gore shooting up and landing on the glass of the door next to him. Several more were stabbed repeatedly. These weren’t all done in bathrooms or hidden out of sight. They were done in hallways and phone stations and other places where guards and security cameras would be omnipresent. There is no way those killings could have gone unobserved and unrecorded.
Haven’t read the thread apart from this last page, but I assumed the less-subtle murders were committed by inmates serving life-without-parole sentences in a state with no death penalty. As in, nothing to lose so why bother hiding it. Catching that case would only add to their status in jail.
(A cursory googling shows that New Mexico recently abandoned the death penalty.)
That explains it! I assumed NM had the death penalty, and couldn’t imagine how the thugs wouldn’t mostly end up on death row.
Ironically, I support the death penalty only for people who commit violent crimes while already locked up. It’s a position I don’t see mooted very often.
Well, it’s a pretty unpopular position, especially politically. You murder 20 nuns in cold blood, no death penalty. You get into a fight in the chow line and kill Jeffrey Dahmer, off with your head!
Anyway, Todd’s uncle’s gang looked like neo-Nazis; maybe Mike was part Jewish.
Yes sure those already in Jail for life with no parole have nothing to lose and don’t talk. But in reality the FBI would realise that those caught had gang affiliations and go and lean on the New Mexico members of the gang that weren’t in Jail. Fine lets say that none of Todd’s uncles gang (He’s Jack according to wiki Jack | Breaking Bad Wiki | Fandom) talk since they are all OG. And lets say that the gang is not paying off families in any obvious way, so they can’t be caught that way.
In practise Walter now has another 3 violent thugs that can identify him as being the one that paid for the prison hits. And that also know that he has access to large sums of cash and seems a bit absent minded.
That M-60 better be for taking out the Jack’s gang, to have them NOT come back and cause trouble would be pretty unbelievable.
I liked how Walt tells Hank he enjoys camping… cut to Walt spending lots of time in a tent [ed house].
It’s rather hilarious some of the far-fetched theories being bandied about. It’s like some people think Hank ought to know Lydia is guilty just by observing her mis-matched shoes. Which obviously leads a merry path to Walt being Heisenberg with stops at Franch, Lily of the Valley, a sailboat oil painting and Walt’s bad driving.
“Gliding All Over” would have made a perfect series finale. But next season, I’d like to see Hank mention the book to Marie. She is incredulous and thinks Hank is off his rocker. She explains it away – Walt probably got the book at a yard sale or a used bookstore. Hank investigates Walt and turns up nothing. Marie the blabbermouth mentions it to Skylar, who relays it to Walt.
Even though there is no evidence, Walt overreacts and disappears to New Hampshire with a duffel bag full of cash. Skylar goes to Saul, who arranges a fake funeral for Walt – they tell Hank that Walt has died of cancer. Life continues normally for Skylar, she continues to launder cash at the car wash. Several uneventful months pass.
It’s Walt’s 52nd birthday. He drives to Albuquerque and purchases a machine gun. He drives from Denny’s to a nondescript residence, carrying the gun. Walt drops it off at the front door and rings the bell, then drives off.
Donald Margolis answers the door. He opens the bag and sees the machine gun. He sees a greeting card, it says “Get well soon”. It turns out Donald Margolis is a collector of military hardware models. The gun is a model and an anonymous gift from Walt, wishing him a healthy recovery. Walt has helpfully included the assembly instructions that were printed off the internet. Oh, and the cough wasn’t cancer, it was just phlegm combined with rhinovirus. The End.
Nah - pretty much all white people in prison do the whole Aryan gang culture thing. I saw some documentary once where they explained that you have to join them if you are white or you won’t survive, as the gangs are completely racially segregated. Even the relatively few Jews who go to prison often end up joining them, because that’s the only option they have.
When writing in block letters, my mother usually writes in all caps. In Japan, I’ve seen many women use all caps when writing in “romaji” (the English alphabet).
A great edit that someones made of every Aha! moment for Hank:
Yes of course Hank now knows Walt is heavily mixed up in the meth trade at a high level. My point I was trying to make before, there’s nothing in any of that to explicitly link Walt to the following:
Ordering or planning the murder of Gus.
Ordering the murder of the 10 people in prison.
Being the sole driving force behind continuuing the production of blue meth.
My theory is that Hank is still going to be looking for a higher player over Walt’s head. If Walt can conquer his ego, he can go along with that and deflect Hank’s attention for a while.
Even if Hank now thinks Walt is Heisenberg, he has no proof at the moment. The next seven episodes will about Hank trying to gather evidence without tipping Walt off. Evidently, eventually, Walt figures the jig is up and skips town.
I don’t know that Hank is going to spend too many episodes gathering evidence. There’s not a lot to recommend that he brings charges against Walt, especially now that the blue meth is disappearing from the market. (Assuming that Walt was honest when he told Skyler that he was finished). I think we’re going to witness an epic internal struggle, because Hank discovering that Walt is Heisenberg is good for nobody. Here’s what happens if Hank brings an official charge against Walt:
Hank is immediately suspended and the case is handed over to an objective third party. The DEA investigates Hank’s connection to Walt and discover plenty of circumstantial evidence that would suggest that Hank was complicit with Walt becoming the meth kingpin of the southwest. Hank is terminated, and it’s almost a certainty that the DEA brings charges against him. At the very least, they’re going to be looking for a sacrificial lamb when the entire clusterfuck goes public.
So Hank loses his job, his pension, and is possible incarcerated. The DEA discovers that Walt was paying for Hank’s treatment and goes after both him and Marie, financially.
The DEA discovers that Skyler has been laundering money for Walt. She’s imprisoned, and loses custody of the children.
Walt is imprisoned.
The children are taken by the state. The entire White family is obliterated. Holly goes into foster care, and it’s unlikely that Marie would be granted custody, given the suspicions that surround Hank. Walt Jr. is disgusted with his father, and hates Hank with an unrelenting fury for what’s he’s done to the White family by revealing Walt’s corruption.
Of course, Hank could always sweep the entire thing under the rug and feign ignorance. If Walt is seriously out of the business, the only reason to arrest him now would be to ensure that justice was fairly dealt. Hank is an upstanding guy and everything, but I don’t think he’s going to destroy himself and his family for the sake of making the collar.
I agree with everything you’ve said except this. The Blue Meth won’t disappear, after three months Todd will be capable of cooking it and both Declan and the Czechs will be asking for more.
Hank’s got two options, walk away and pretend he doesn’t know, or talk Walt into cooperating to catch someone bigger and then try and hope the DEA are happy enough with a bigger bust to ignore the obvious. I can’t see Hank just walking away, he has to try and turn Walt, and thats going to be the conflict of the last 8 episodes.